the setting was sunday night before the debate, mock debates, he and john kerry playing mitt romney. first session on saturday went okay. sunday night was a horrible experience. the president was like he was in the denver debate, lethargic, professorial, didn't seem like he was fighting for the job. at times peevish, nasty to governor kerry sitting in for mitt romney. they were panicked. that prep ended and you had a scene which we write about in double down, plouffe, axelrod, debate advisers staying up to well past midnight saying what do we do, what do we do? how can we turn this around? we can't do down this path. they did what they called an intervention with the president. four aides and the president alone meeting to try to find how to turn things around. in short in the scene the president said, as you said, i'm not sure i can do this. they did a couple of things, how he needed to change his state of mind about it. they gave him one-liners, debate on a page to try to just come up with anticipating the questions, coming up with one-liners to use in the debate, and the president